The Extras - Superman: Timeless Icon Extra

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

We celebrate the 25th Anniversary release of "Superman: The Animated Series" for the first time on Blu-ray with a discussion with filmmaker Alex Gray about his exclusive special feature extra created for the release.  Alex details for us the challenges posed by the pandemic, and how he re-worked his original creative concepts to accommodate the remote interview restrictions.  His pivot to audio interviews with the producers and cast was warmly received and proved to be a brilliant antidote to the pandemic restrictions that led to even more personal stories and remembrances.  Alex then worked with the Warner Bros Animation archivist to unearth never-before-used storyboards, character models, and other artwork to blend with the interviews.  Personal photos provided by the cast and publicist Gary Miereanu rounded out the visuals. The final touch was an analog score and an audio mix that punctuated the multi-layered final film.This exceptionally creative extra is the capstone to an arguably must-have new Blu-ray box set for all “Superman: The Animated Series” fans.The Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host, and today we are joined once again by my good friend, filmmaker Alex Gray. Many of you

remember Alex from our previous Batman podcasts. However, today we are talking Superman, and specifically the 25th anniversary release of the iconic Superman the Animated Series, produced by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett, and Glenn Murakami. The all-new Blu-ray box set releases this October 2021 and includes all 54 episodes remastered from the 35mm interpositive sources, with special attention to extensive color correction, dirt and scratch cleanup, and adding a grain reduction pass

to create a pristine picture, all while making sure not to affect the original lines in the artwork of the animation. The audio was re-transferred from the original Audio Masters, and the series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 4 by 3. The box set also includes an all-new series-defining featurette entitled Superman, Timeless Icon, produced by Alex Gray. So if you love Superman, I think you'll enjoy our conversation today. Well, Alex, it's good to have you back on The Extras. Tim, it's great to be here again. Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this.

We've done quite a few podcasts on Batman, so I'm looking forward to talking to you about Superman. Yeah, definitely. Superman is one of those characters that often we get introduced to first. It just seems that way. Yeah, I think that when I was a, you know, when I was a kid, Superman was probably, you know, potentially more of a favorite for me. And then as I grew older, which I think has been true for a lot of us and, and Batman just, I mean, just grew as a character and after the Dark Knight and then the movies is just Batman has become such a relevant superhero just to, I think, the modern age. But as a child, I was really into Superman like a lot of kids. Maybe you can take us back a little bit and give us just a brief, you know, like a very,

very brief overview of Superman and why he's such an important part of the DC universe. I'm glad you brought that up because the era in which you and I grew up in, particularly the 1980s, getting to experience the Donner films and realizing that Superman can be visualized in terms of the cinematic medium and with such incredible production design, an ability to be able to actually make the character fly and look incredibly realistic. And then obviously the actors that were involved with the piece as well. Christopher Reeve being our Superman on a lot of extents like that. That typified our upbringing and I get it.

And that was sort of like my entree into superheroes as well, of course. And it was absolutely brilliant. But looking back and to talk about a bit about the history of Superman and why we as a people are attracted to a character that has superhuman strength, superhuman abilities. This relates a lot to the ideal that we always want to be larger than whom we are. We go to stories and fantastical stories on top of that to be able to understand that our own human frailty that we may have and that we're beholden to, our own mortality that we beholden to, can actually be squelched for a moment if we go into our mind's eye, if we are able to then involve ourselves into this fantasy

side of things, well, that's not just for the kids like you and I, when we were growing up, that was definitely there the entire time. It's intrinsic. Joseph Campbell talks about this in terms of the myths, in terms of the monomyth, that that is a part of us, that we want to tap into that superhuman character, that being that's inside of us, that we want to tap into that superhuman character, that being that's inside of us. Hey, they say we're made of the stars, right? So what could be more powerful than that type of motif, that type of vision, you know, and what have you. So looking at that, we trace back and see some of these early elements that were inspiring both Siegel and Schuster when they

were originally designing the character and writing about the character and coming up with what do we infuse this character with? Of course, he's going to have that superhuman strength. They were looking at some of those myths that were Germanic at the time. We know with the Siegfried, he, of course, being this German hero in their myths would emerge as someone that had these abilities that was able to conquer the dragon. And then, let's say, in his case, maybe rescue the princess that would ultimately become maybe his queen or what have you. So we look at this and it becomes this common approach to things. But we also recognize that we are in love with this character that comes from somewhere else out of the blue, maybe not even born. Maybe he's like immaculately created on some level. He's just

there all of a sudden. That's incredibly powerful. We see that to a great extent, of course, with Superman and Superman taps into that. Although, of course, he is from this other planet, from Krypton, and he's sent here to Earth. And we get that impression that it's very similar, of course, he is from this other planet, from Krypton, and he's sent here to Earth, and we get that impression that it's very similar, of course, also to the biblical myth of Moses. And Moses as the babe being placed into the basket and then being sent down the river and then ultimately discovered by a whole new world and a new culture. And then, of course, getting reared in that capacity. We see a lot of this inherently in terms of mythology, the Greco-Roman myths, biblical mythology, and then ultimately

working its way into the character of Superman, that uber mensch, that great man, the big man, that's bigger than life. And so it's made sense to us because what better way at the time in 1938, when the world was at its brink of potential disaster, considering that we were seeing invasions of the German army at the time, invading various countries and taking over, we were on our path to, of course, the World War II. And having experienced this by way of what they were seeing, these two young men at the time, they wanted to create some sort of an outlet of that. So they being these artists and being at D.C. at the time and being able to have this opportunity that, hey, I can actually make something here out of this and create some sort of a myth. They started to create this character, this character that was the strong man type. At first, though, ironically, he was a villain, which is very interesting.

So the original myth was that he wasn't necessarily the benevolent hero that we ultimately have in Superman. But ultimately, he starts to evolve because selling a villain as the strong man wasn't the best approach. And I won't get too far into the details, but what happened is of course, circumstance comes into the fold and ultimately you then create a character that has the benevolent qualities that we're going to be attracted to that will actually cause young kids to buy the comic book. Because at the end of the day, it was also a business. Cut to all these various years later, that myth still sticks with us. Why? Because it harkens back to the original mythology

that we're just talking about here that's 100 years old, 200 years old, even a thousand years old. You can talk about these myths and they're always the same because we want to have that opportunity to do the things that we cannot do. vanquish our opponent in a capacity that is superhuman, a way that is so much stronger than our mere mortal abilities. And here we have it. And plus Superman is imbued with a character that is such a nice guy, right? He's a sweetheart. He is awesome. His persona is one that is approachable. He has that Messiah-like aura around him that we know from the books, from the various films, from the animation, ultimately, that it is still heavily around this character. It surrounds him. We can trust Superman immediately. And he wears an icon, the glyph that is on his chest the house of kal-el as as they

like to say in the recent uh in the recent tv series krypton right that is important that is something that's relevant and iconography is hugely important in terms of our historical nature and our anthropological nature as human beings and our desire to be a part of the myth the mono myth that it is there. And if we can sum that up in one image and here's this icon, looks like an S later on, of course, is now, as I said, is the house of Kal-El. It is a representation of that. That's huge. That's important. We want to be a part of that. Yeah. You know, that kind of perfect idealized man, when you're a kid, especially, you're always looking for that aspirational

character. And Superman is the aspirational character we all would want to be, envision ourselves. And you just mentioned a little bit, I think, about the new Superman and Lois TV show, which I'm really enjoying. But the kind of thing that's interesting about that show is that he actually has boys, kids, and that puts a spin on it, which is really unique. But as a child, you look up to Superman. In their case, it puts a whole different kind of spin on it. But when you just talked about that, it made me think of that. And hopefully someday we can maybe touch on that TV series. But to bring this back.

I'd love to. That's a fantastic series. I know. Seeing that from the point of view of the family. Oh my gosh, it's so deep. And in the work that Todd Helbing and his team have been able to create on that level to tell a unique version of a Superman story that we have not seen before. Uh, that's rare and it's powerful. And the imagery, as I told Todd personally, I said, I am so blown away. It really seriously brings chills down my spine when I see those incredible moments and I am cheering. I am

cheering in front of that television screen. And that's awesome. I love that. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's worthwhile and it sticks with me. So yes, I know you worked on the extras for that. So, um, but we'll just tease the fans with that for right now. We'll have to come back to that some other day. Because today we're talking about Superman, the complete animated series, Blu-ray release, which is also what the 25th anniversary of the series premiere. Is that correct? That's right.

That's right. I can't believe it's been 25 years. That's incredible. It's 25 years. This is the big celebration of this. And the DVD complete series release was back in 2009. And you and I do have a history with that release. We were both working at Warner Brothers together and we worked together on an extra for that with our good friend, Mike Brosnan, who's a terrific filmmaker. And that piece was called The Despot Darkseid, a villain worthy of Superman.

And that piece was called The Despot Dark Side, a villain worthy of Superman. And it has your handprints all over it. And what I mean by that is the choice of Dark Side to go deep, to really just in one piece rather than kind of touching lightly on a number of things, but to pick one, go deep in it. And that's a really fun piece. I just rewatched it because it had been since 2009, I think, that I had seen it, and it holds up very well. Very well done. Do you remember when we worked on that? Yeah, yeah, I do, actually. And same here. I do recall, it's interesting going back and seeing the film again and realizing how deep we went also. And I really appreciated it on those levels and getting to see, if anything, the character of Darkseid as a villain is that

antithetical approach to Superman. It's precisely what Siegel and Schuster on a lot of levels were originally creating, as I brought up at the top of this conversation, which was they were creating this villain, this supervillain on a lot of levels. But if anything, that may have actually been that original prototype that became part of Darkseid because Darkseid ultimately has those abilities of Superman, but then some. Right. Then some. He is absolutely powerful and none other than, of course, Jack Kirby being the one that created the character that involved not only just the design of the character, but all of his abilities and what the character can do. Boy, there, there is no other menacing character that

truly comes to mind where Superman is going to have to go toe to toe, eye to eye with that character. I mean, that villain, it is, it is absolutely incredible. And when you do look forward to dark side stories, you really do. Yeah. And that's the fun part of this animated series that they really did delve into that fourth world and all of the characters that, that fourth world represents. So that, that was a really fun extra. It makes me think, did you ever think about doing one on Brainiac? And we probably just never got around to it. Was that ever in the, in the cards? It was actually. And the funny thing is we did get to dive into the Brainiac character on the show Krypton, which was another show that Warner Brothers had released. And I encourage the fans to go and check that out. Unfortunately, the show

was canceled, but we did get out of that. Oh my God. The most awesome version I think of Brainiac to date. Yes. The animation out there is fantastic. You do get some awesome performances and seeing Brainiac appear occasionally in these various animated movies or these animated shows. But getting to experience the performance of this actor, Blake Ritson in Krypton as Brainiac was tremendous. I mean, talk about creepy. He really dialed that in. I mean, got under your skin. You really just didn't feel like this was just some menacing threat that's out there in the ether and is going to be coming down to the Krypton universe, the Krypton world that is. No, instead, he was already there and he was working his machinations into the minds of people, but also

having this because he's sentient on so many levels, he's also calculating out whatever he's up to in his ship. So even though he physically embodied this eerie looking character, he had so much more with him where you felt the threat was that much more real. Compliments to David Goyer, to his team, to his writers, to the actor, Blake Ritson, for being able to create something so memorable. So yes, on some level, we did actually work with the Brainiac character, at least in the live action sense for the television series. And again, I encourage those that have not seen it to check that out. That series is phenomenal. And our extras are pretty cool too, I thought. But I really think that it would be great at some point to dive in even further in the Brainiac character because Brainiac

as a villain is one rendition of him. So talk about interesting. Brainiac at some point also occupies a more benevolent character. And we do see that character emerge eventually as well, not necessarily in this show, Krypton, because it didn't get to that level, but in other series, we do see that as well. So it's fascinating to know that the character is malleable and that you can create something about the notion of using extreme forms of intelligence like that, but then you can add in levity to the character as well,

or you can go to the dark side, which of course this one, and not to be confused with the dark side, the being. Well, that was a fun project to work on with you. And that was part of the DVD release. Now we're talking about the Blu-ray release, which is terrific. They've cleaned up the images and they've redone the sound and it should be spectacular.

And you have an all new exclusive featurette for that release. And that's really what we wanted to get into today. And that featurette is called Superman Timeless Icon. Maybe you can take us back to when you first were approached about this and how you conceptualize it. That's always an interesting story to me. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page

or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Yeah, sure. So Superman Timeless Icon originally began as a opportunity to get into the character potentially as deep as we got in with Batman the Animated Series. Warner Brothers animation in the postmodern version, like where it is right now. And my it's my love letter to them on a lot of levels. And also, of course, it's the Batman story of the animated series and what Bruce Timm and his team brought to it. We then came up with this concept when we were thinking this over, because once we heard that Superman, the animated series has now finally been greenlit. And what better timing, of course, because the 25th anniversary. Super cool. series has now finally been green lit and what better timing of course because it's the 25th anniversary super cool so we got into it from the point of view of let's tell the story of the heart of superman instead and we started to go down this particular path but the writing and the part where this is where the interesting part comes through when you're conceptualizing you do

have to ask yourself honest questions about how much story do you have. So in the case of Batman, the animated series, and those of you who have seen Heart of Batman, you will see this interplay between the story of Warner Brothers animation and then ultimately Batman, the animated series. And we cut back and forth quite a bit throughout that whole thing, that whole feature film. But in the case of Superman, well, we've already told the story of Warner Brothers animation. And quite frankly, they were riding on their success of Batman, the animated series at the time in 1996, 97, when this was starting to be conceptualized, the show itself, Superman, the animated series. So I had to make the honest choice. And this is

always the filmmaking side of me as well, which is that you've got to ask yourself those questions. Can you sustain this? And how long can you sustain this for on screen in terms of story, in terms of your total runtime is how we call it in our industry. Right. And is this going to be a feature production or is this going to be a 30 minute piece? And asking ourselves that honest question, we came to the realization that 30 minutes or so sounded reasonable and it sounded appropriate. So that was part of that, that early process we were looking at from that point of view and what type of story were we going to tell? And then the other motivator was how can we tell this story in terms of where we are at in our country, in our world at the moment under the pandemic. Right. And obviously that affected us pretty significantly. So just to clarify that,

when did you start the work on this title? We began in the latter part of 2019 thinking about it because, you know, the schedule comes out pretty early as it needs to because packaging's involved with it because it's released on physical product, physical media. And because menus are need to be designed, assets need to be, as you said, remastered as well. And the intention was, well, we're going to remaster these assets. I believe they actually bumped them up to 4k and they looked back at all their old film elements and then they basically timed them out and then also printed them again in terms of a 4k transfer. So all that, all that level of work is, is considerable and it takes a lot of time. And so they were able to finally achieve

that. So we find out early on, we conceptualize, we write something and as all written things in terms of the entertainment business, it evolves and you have to be open to the evolution of it. But the early stuff we, yeah, we found out about the project, wrote the idea, then things kind of have to sit in stasis for a while until the studio is ready. So we do like to march out early so we can gain the level of meeting and exposure with marketing. So they have an opportunity to properly vet it and see how that fits in into their paradigm, their design of what they're going to be marketing and how, of course, PR will function in that capacity as well. And if they're vibing with our ideas, you know, that's super important as well, because sure, I could be into it. You could be into it.

But is the team involved into it? And most preciously, and I say this in that capacity, because you want to make sure that people who are not necessarily the diehard fans are. Is it speaking to them? Is it speaking to their heart on some level? Are they saying, you know what? I can't wait to see this being made. I might not know anything about Superman, the animated series, but I sure want to see your film and sounds like your film is going to entertain and educate me. shut everything down. Yeah. So everything gets shut down. You've got the idea and you pitched it. How did that evolve or change because of the restrictions of the pandemic? Well, that happened by way, just to give you a quick, quick beat by beat on that. I started to contact

people in the traditional format and get ahold of the talent that I wanted to have in our project. And the producer on this project who was with me working in the, in the trenches as well, as I like to say is Scott McCullough, who is a incredible producer, longtime friend, collaborator as well. Incredible writer also, and someone that I rely on also to kind of get some feedback about our, not only the ideas, but also who are we going to put on camera? Because you have to choose your talent list and you do have to choose wisely. The reality is any show may have hundreds of people that have worked upon it. And every position is important. Every moment that everybody has on a show that puts their fingerprints on that show, it's incredibly important. And there are a lot of them are those unsung heroes that I've brought up in the past. But when it comes

to a 30 minute piece, we can't interview all 200 people or more that worked on a show. We have to really pick and choose who could tell our story from a particular angle that we're looking for. And so we did. And our inception point was, let's make our talent list and let's figure this out. And I started to reach out to those talent that we had finally decided upon. this out. And I started to reach out to those talent that we had finally decided upon. What happened is, is that you get feedback and I'm sure a lot of producers out there will relate to this, who listened to this show that a lot of them just flank, you know, talent wise, I frankly just said, you know what, I'd love to do it, but I'm not leaving my home or I'd love to do it, but can we do this six months from now? I'd love to do it, but I cannot come in. Or some actually said, you know what? I'm willing to throw a caution to the wind. I'll come in. You know, that kind of a thing. Yeah. Everybody had a different perspective though. And that's been the case with the pandemic. Yeah. Everybody has. And so you just got to listen to what they're all saying

and you make an executive decision. And in this case, we decided let's portray the story by way of audio only in terms of the interviews, in terms of the talent interviews, and let's see what happens. And I have a good feeling about it. My gut is telling me that this could, this could work. I started to run it by my talent that were going to be in this picture, which of course is guys like Bruce, Tim, Paul Dini, Andrea Romano, and the others that were wanting to, to be a part of this project, including Tim Daly, Clancy Brown, and all of them responded very quickly and positively to receiving audio gear from us to record with

and to go forward in that capacity instead. So that was the major pivot point that we had to do. And it was by design of COVID, but quite honestly, it challenged had to do. And it was by design of COVID, but quite honestly, it challenged us to do something differently, to approach this project instead of just giving up the project or saying, you know, washing our hands from it and saying, oh, we can't do that, or going to something which would be lesser in my opinion. And in particular consideration, I was concerned because this is the 25th anniversary of the show. I loved the show

back in the nineties. I love the show now. And I wanted to make sure that we're doing our due diligence, especially for the youngest generation that may be coming into the fold and watching this for the first time. I want them to be excited about it just as much as I'm sure that Bruce Tim wanted his fans to be excited about the show initially as well. Well, in some ways, it's really a brilliant resolution to the problem because the whole idea behind animation is that people are doing audio. And so you have people who work in that medium, especially the voice actors, but Andrea, Bruce, Paul, they all have been in the record sessions. They know the power of the audio. And then they trust that you're going to put the images against that audio. That's going to tell the story. When you look back, it's kind of a simple answer to the problem,

but in this case, it's, it's the perfect one. Yeah. I, I was, uh, I was pleased with it that ultimately that, that, that this could actually work., it sounds like that in theory, of course, up front. And I appreciate your compliments. And that's how I basically was approaching as well. You know, I was crossing my fingers also. And I know that Scott and I and even Gary, who is also a producer, Gary Mariano, was a producer on this film as well. And I will get in more in terms of like what he contributed to also to our project tremendously. And his whole backstory, of course, being the publicist, having had such a myriad and awesome history with all the studios, uh, and now in particular with Warner brothers and with this

release as well. But we approached with that great point of view, like all filmmakers do, we can do this and you throw caution to the wind and you have to never lose sight of that as a filmmaker. You have to be consistent sight of that as a filmmaker. You have to be consistent with that because that is always what gets you to that next level or could get you in a little bit of trouble. But it's in those troublesome moments that if challenge arises, it actually ultimately creates a better product as well. I won't go too far on that. But in this case, we had this idea, let's send them this audio gear. And here's the thing, the talent that are in this piece,

they'll tell you themselves, they are not all tech savvy. Right. And they were flat out honest with me up front about it. And I said, okay, uh, how about this? Receive the gear. And it was pretty simplified microphone recorder, things like that headset. You know, I kept it really pretty, pretty lean. And we gave them this instructional guidebook and my team put together a little uh roadmap for them how to plug everything together and what have you and whatnot but there is a certain trepidation of course if you have to record yourself i would imagine and you want to make sure that you actually are recording something because you don't want to be talking for an hour and then nothing's there oh shoot nothing's there as i as i look down at my soundboard to be sure we're recording here.

Yeah, that trepidation is always there. Exactly. Exactly. Because, you know, off the top of their head, they're probably providing these gems to us and they want to make sure that they lay down the tracks. And I tell you this, they received the gear and they all had a blast with it. And they did converse with me and we walked through some steps over the phone and put it all together. And they were confident in terms of like their location to be able to record at home and creating that right environment. They create each of them created this makeshift booth and some level of where they can record. You know, one of them actually at a professional booth, which is super cool. Shout out to Paul Dini and his wife, Misty.

Tremendous opportunity to be able to record with Paul. But even more so, he responds back to me and says, oh, by the way, my wife has built a booth here in the home. And it's an audio booth so she can do her own work. And I'm just going to use that as the location. She's going to record me. So you see what happens is this is when you do do those things, like I said, you throw caution to the wind. And interestingly enough, the right things start to happen. And that came forward and we got an exquisite record from Paul.

Not only were his words great, but it sounded just, you know, pristine and awesome. Well, knowing that I listened to it as I was watching with a little bit more maybe attention and everything I thought sounded really great. Now, were you on the phone with them or something, asking them questions and then they would just record it locally? So thank you for that. I appreciate you, uh, your compliment. I, I, when I did receive the audio back, I will tell you this is I told you in an email or I told you over the phone, I don't recall, but I did say to you that once I started to

hear their audio and listen to what would, what had been recorded. First of all, my first check box, the box I needed to check off first rather was, did it record? Is it audible? Yes. Yes. Okay, great. And what does it sound like? So I started listening for about, you know, three, five minutes for each of them just to kind of test it. And I got, oh yeah, that's really great. Oh my God, that sounds really good. Whoa. That that's interesting. That actually sounds a lot more warm and intriguing. It's like, as if they're there still with me in the room, it was, it was really very cool and interesting. And then my re-recording mixer, uh, Warren ended up listening to it as well. And he said, how did you do that? So I

impressed him. So if that says anything, this guy is, you know, 40 years in this business and in an audio recorder and audio mixer and, and a re-recording mixer, you know, Warren Kleinman, his years are amazing, far more attuned than mine are. And he was able to pick up on the fact that this actually worked out. So I was thankful, but you know, to get there was always that thing. Is it going to sound good? I didn't know, but you know, they get the gear, they put it together. And to answer your question, am I over the phone with them? Initially, I was going to be over the phone with them, but I decided to truly roll the dice again, Tim, on this one. I said, let us write questions and let's make this more about each of them kind of doing

their own homework assignment, kind of doing their own thing. Instead, I want to see what type of results that we get out of this. I do this occasionally again to challenge myself as a filmmaker because I cannot be reliant upon resting on my laurels. I cannot be reliant upon my last success because eventually I need to challenge myself. I need to see what we can do. And you have to also ultimately go by instinct. Instinct prevailed for me in challenge myself. I need to see what we can do. And you have to also ultimately go by instinct. Instinct prevailed for me in this one. I was thrilled to hear that they enjoyed the process. It was different for them. And you do get these very honest responses

though, which I thought was brilliant is that you get these moments where they actually record these asides for you as well. They'll start to talk to me as if I'm there in the room with them. They will literally say, and Alex, here's some instruction about this. Or Alex, here's some aside from this, some backstory to this. Or some of them, Clancy in particular, hilarious, by the way, hilarious. He sits there and listens to and reads off our questions and is just poking fun at it the whole time, which was awesome and funny because if you can get Clancy going and get Clancy laughing, that's a big deal to me. And I'm a huge Clancy fan. You know, if you can get any guy in a Highlander laughing, that's awesome. I'm a big

Highlander fan. It was cool to be able to experience that audio and to know that each of them did it. And this is where Gary Mariano, uh, thank God for him. He is a brilliant producer, brilliant publicist. He was able to secure these talent for us, both Tim Daly, whom played Superman, Clancy Brown, who played Lex Luthor. He was able to secure them for us for this project and work with them in terms of being able to make these records as well. as well. These guys were not here in LA. They were on the other side of the country. I believe one was in New York. One was in Connecticut, let's say somewhere around there in the Northeast. We were having to work through some time differences, explain things to them. How do you do this? And they are working actors. These guys are working. They have day jobs they're working upon. And, and, you know, I was just thrilled at the fact that they wanted to harken back 25 years and look at these characters, look at what they did, because the work was obviously important and it stood the test of time. But again, credit to Gary Mariano on this and being able to secure them for us to being able to do this. And they turned out

just so brilliant. That's amazing. That's a great story. Gary is just an amazing publicist as well for all of the different releases. And Gary really knows how to work with talent. So you got the good audio. You're like, okay, we got something. Did you have a script? How did you then transition all of that audio into the final piece? You have to, because we quickly realized you don't have a visual representation of what you perceive people are thinking. Cause when you see them on camera, you can see their eye movements. You can see them if they're shifting around, if they put their hands to their face or whatever they're up to, you see those body movements, those, those small things that start to emerge that tell you the telltale signs of what somebody is, is feeling emotionally speaking and how that's going to plug into your production. So it really behooved us in this capacity to not only get the production

transcripts, but truly to actually study the footage in terms of the footage, it was audio. So my, my team who is normally accustomed to obviously watching this visual medium and obviously working from these transcripts and what have you to be able to tell a story, we were really forced to truly listen to the inflections of voice. Inflections of voice are so important. And I love that. I love like the voice patterns that can, you know, ebb and flow and really tell a story as opposed to just being this plateaued, you know, mono sounding thing. I like voices in stereo. So, you know, that kind of thing. So it was interesting to hear their inflections and to pick up on that because you had to pick up on the subtlety of emotion somehow, because that's how you're going to judge your performance. And some of them did

actually repeat their lines, which was sort of, and you're reminding me about this, is that there was an interesting scenario and dynamic that happened because they're on audio and because they were alone in their, in their homes, they were able to look at this and go like, well, maybe that didn't give the full and complete answer that I wanted to give. And they ended up actually recording more and they'll take a second take, second stab at the material that they, they really wanted to put their best foot forward. And probably because they were nervous because usually again, to the visual medium, they're accustomed to having me across from them, looking them in the eyes and looking for my expressions

and looking for me, if I'm absorbing the material and if there's that nice exchange of energy going back and forth between us. Right. And without that there, it creates a different level of dynamic. So we got these extra extras, so to speak. And it was actually pretty cool because we were able to then judge them accordingly and tell our three act structure like we like to do traditionally with all of our films and projects and really figure out those various beats. We were twofold. One was of course emotion. That is always the most important thing for me. The second thing was about exposition. How do we tell the story? What are our various beats that we want to tell in this? And I was looking at it from those points of view. You then melded visuals. Sometimes you showed pictures of some of the talent just

for reference, but most of it is other visuals. There's the comic panels, there's the actual comic book covers, there's images from the TV series, there's stuff from television shows and movies. You really got a lot of variety of B-roll to go on top of that audio so that I didn't really notice that you were, you would normally cut away to somebody on camera. I didn't miss it. I thought you just blended it enough. And then of course you had this, the little subtitle there saying whose voice it was, though, after a while, you kind of, your, your, your brain just kind of naturally fills that in. But tell us a little bit about putting the images now against that audio. Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate that. It's intriguing from the point of view because that, of course, was the elephant in the room question, which is how are you going to fill 30 minutes of space with just audio only? Well, it can't just be audio only. We need those visuals. Obviously, the main thing we have to rely upon are the various episodes of superman the animated series they're very exquisite now because they've all been remastered they look gorgeous they're they're impeccably uh well wrought now there's there's limited if there are any issues i can't even see any any longer they're just gorgeous gorgeous

episodes uh we knew we're going to use this material but that's not enough because these interviews get into a bit of the backstory. They tell us about these other aspects. So I did actually meet with, at least virtually in this case, because this was during the height of COVID, with the Warner Brothers archivist at Warner Brothers Animation. And that's Rini Teporzyk. And that's Rini Teporzyk. And she is just this incredible, wonderful font of information. And her breadth of knowledge of history of Warner Brothers animation and animation in general is extraordinary. She is a tremendous resource and truly always just so kind to hear out what our needs are, what we're looking for in terms of our project.

And she was able to provide a myriad of choices for us from key episodes that we had selected. There are too many for us to just select all of them. It would just be too time consuming as well, research wise for this length of project. We selected the key episodes that made most sense to us, asked her if we can get those storyboards and other character design elements, anything that portrayed the early days when the show was being originated in the mind of Bruce, Tim and his team to the final projects themselves. The final, of course, those projects being the various episodes. So she was able to provide this wonderful wealth of information to us. And we are able to use that on screen and we were able to animate various moments

of it stuff that people have not seen before and hasn't seen the light of day in ages locked away in the salt mines in kansas where the studio keeps some of its most precious materials and being able to call that stuff up and share this with the fans i was ecstatic i couldn't wait for the day when the material arrived right to be honest. It was just so cool to be able to experience this because as a fan in 1996, 97, when the show had come out, I had no idea that I was going to be working on this. So it was very full circle for me to be able to see some of this stuff and getting to see and really look at like the early design work, the title design work that Bruce Timm had done and looking at those character models

and looking at at his various theories of character how the character is going to be animated and all of his instructions and bruce is always very very detailed about that so he likes to include a lot of inscriptions on the physical page where he's drawn these turnarounds or these characters meaning from all sides of the character angle and then then plus the theories, which is, of course, is like, well, what is this? What does Superman's hand look like? What does Superman look like in close up? What does his teeth look like? What are all the various bits of Superman look like?

And how do you draw him accurately? Bruce includes his notes in there. I love seeing stuff like that. I love sharing that kind of level of information with the fans so they can see how the mind of Bruce works to be able to achieve that level of entertainment. It does take hard work and perseverance on this level of minutia that ultimately leads into the product that we have at hand. Well, that content was created, of course, never necessarily to see the light of day. Back then there was no, well, I guess in the, in 90s, DVD was just coming on as a format in the latter part of the 90s. But there was no sense of extras and what that was all going to be.

But the extras are really the platform and maybe the only platform to see this kind of stuff, unless you have a author going back to publish a book, which would be maybe another time that some of that content is unarchived, so to speak. So that's really fun because now the focus is really on all these visuals and you're seeing stuff that maybe has never been seen before. And that makes this a really special and unique extra. Thank you so much, Tim. I appreciate that because that's exactly the idea to be able to have our audience focus on the imagery, that is challenging. And in particular, because there's no reprieve where we suddenly go back to one of our talent, one of our actors in quotes, I like to call them our actors. So, but we don't cut back to them.

So it's non-traditional. It's very unorthodox. So the imagery has to be spot on. The imagery has to be so unique and compelling enough and varied enough that we are able to achieve that perspective to reinvigorate our audience consistently. So we get that nice ebb and flow thing going on emotionally speaking, and it juxtaposes well with the music and sound design choices. But that's it. That was the paradigm. When we set out from the get-go and that's how we sold it to marketing because marketing of course was, and I think that some of the teams over there there they had brought up the logical

question wait you don't have a camera you're not going to shoot interviews with these these folks it blows your mind in a little way to even think about doing that yeah correct exactly and so you have to sell them on this thing and so we did and we sold them on the fact is that the images are going to be spot on the images in this piece are exquisite and getting to showcase that 4k animation and getting to see to the level of where you as Warner Brothers have brought this, uh, that's important for the fans to be able to experience that. And I think they were, they, they started to feel more sold on the concept in terms of that as well. More comfortable, I should say. Before we move on, I do want to give credit to the editor who was tasked with blending all of these visuals with that audio. Can you talk

a little bit about Damon? Damon Clausen is one of the best editors I have ever worked with, bar none. He is a person that understands story and he has this unique and innate ability to be able to combine imagery and juxtapose it together in the documentary format where we have progression of emotion. He's fantastic at that. If there ever was someone that understood the way in which that I was originally taught this filmmaking thing and the way that I was originally interested in seeing how images can tell a story, even if you turn the volume off completely. That's Damon. Damon Clawson has that unique ability. That is something that is a true gem. He's also a dear friend. And I met him, oddly enough, by way of, and this is hearkening us back

to a previous episode that we've done in the past in terms of the arcade and pinball hobby. to a previous episode that we've done in the past in terms of the arcade and pinball hobby. Oh, right. So I answered one of his ads one day, he was selling something and lo and behold, Damon is an editor. And that of course, my eyebrow raised, my interest was piqued. And I said, really, you're an editor, huh? Okay. Yeah. May I keep your phone number? And I think I'm going to call you someday. And he started to, you know, we, we spoke the same language and it was a really cool moment to be able to see somebody that understood a couple of things I was interested in, obviously filmmaking. And then of course the pinball and arcade game hobby. And since then, and Damon's been working

with us for many, many years now, well over a decade And just a neat guy that is able to provide so much input all the time because we have this wonderful active dialogue on a daily basis, whether it's an email or we're on the phone or in text, we're talking through things. He is the collaborator that I rely on as well, like Scott McCullough, like Gary Mariano, other collaborators, like my staff who works with me as well on these projects. They're all collaborators, but Damon brings this sense of this speciality to it that, you know, you are in the company of someone that understands story on a very deep level emotionally and is able to convey that to you and understands what you as a filmmaker hope for as well. And he's brutally honest about it as well,

which is great. And we need that because you can't just go out into the world and go onto the stage if you haven't practiced. And if you haven't done what you need to do to be able to hone the craft, to be able to hone the story. I always tell my crew that as well.

When we're behind the scenes, we're like behind the scenes on the stage. When we're on the stage, that's for the world to see. So let's make sure that we always put our best foot forward. And Damon's got my back in that capacity and I've got his. So we do do this together as a collaboration. Well, that's, uh, we want to be sure that Damon gets the credit for all that terrific work. You know, the other thing that I was really impressed with as I was watching the extra was that sound design. Obviously, that was going to be a huge part of this. Who did that for you?

And talk a little bit about that. So that happened in terms of the original scope to the sound design itself. We did rely on some of the aspects from the show itself because we did find the stems, the audio stems. And that just means the separate bits of audio that thankfully they had in the warner brothers archive still it wasn't lost so the stems from the actual episodes stems from the actual episodes were were sourced again so we were we were incredibly thankful that we had an opportunity to be able to go back to that we had the proper audio splits then provided to us and we're able to then use them to our advantage. We're able to tell the story of Superman, the animated series, but in a more unique capacity as opposed to being wedged in according to, let's say, audio that gets locked in and has no choice. We can't necessarily,

what I mean by that is separate your sound effects elements, let's say, from the music and the dialogue. In this case, we had that opportunity. Coupled with that, we made some very specific choices upfront in terms of the music. Coupled with that, we made some very specific choices upfront in terms of the music. What type of music do we want to hear in this? Well, the intention was after this chat that I had with Damon and with Scott was let's use heroic music, but occasionally, and we've talked about this in the past, I love these instruments. These analog instruments are tremendous. And the fact that they're analog, they rely on analog circuits as opposed to these ones and zeros. They give you this in-between thing where the voice of the instrument goes a little bit wobbly. It's not filtered exactly the

way that you anticipate, which is super cool and interesting. So we'd like to find bits of this type of music as well. And then we add that into our project. I feel like on some deeper level, this shakes things up. The anticipation, of course, is that you're probably going to go with something that's akin to the show, which is more heroic based, which is, you know, larger, more orchestral in terms of composition. We went a little bit different. We went smaller. It's the same token in there embedded in those instruments like an analog synthesizer. You have powerful voices that come out of that. So it may be a smaller instrument per se, but what comes out of it is

profundity is that aspect of like, where, Hey, I'm now moving forward with your project on this emotional level. Wow. All I know is that when I listened to it, the emotion, the impact, it takes you along. At least for me, I didn't think about or feel that this was a 30 minute piece. When you think, well, we're not going to have the talent on camera. How long can you sustain that with other footage? But the sound design mixed with that wealth of unearthed visuals that you got from the archives really makes this a very unique piece. Yeah. And it was also interesting too, because we didn't want to reveal the voices in terms of what they looked like once we were on board for the ride, you know, in terms of this, and we committed to it, of course. But as you brought up earlier, we do show an image or two of whom is speaking, not on camera, but through the voice. And I like that moment. I liked this technique. We use something similar in a project of ours, a film called Night Immortal, which of course covers the 80th anniversary of Batman. But that was a little bit different because we

actually did shoot on that one. We actually rolled camera, then used audio. This was audio only. We were entrenched with audio only. We were committed to audio only. There were no take backs. This is what we were using. So at the very end, when we do reveal who these people are through their pictures that were so personal and so genuine and these candid moments that Gary Mariano, again, came through and provided to us behind the scenes shots that no one but him would have been able to shoot. Moments that are on the Comic-Con stage, moments that are in these sound booths when he is recording there and working with Andrea Romano and working with Bruce Timm and the writers. Just these various good, heartfelt moments where these people are being themselves. We have that in there and I'm able to showcase that because that's what I want the world to see because these people are so genuine. They're not in a box. These are people that have this analog sensibility about them because they're true artists. I love seeing that. I love being able to express that. So the imagery that was provided to us, not only by Gary, but also each of them came through as well. All of them did that for us.

They went into their archives, they dug deep, they found stuff from the nineties, they found some current stuff as well. And they provided those images to us. And you know what? It just made that extra level, what we needed. It added that level of emotion that I wanted to feel by the end of the piece. I wanted to know that I'm, I'm filled with a sense of heart, a sense of heroics, a sense of emotion again. Well, it's a terrific piece. And as an extra, it's a really unique and worthy bonus feature. Obviously, if you love Superman, the complete animated series, you want to buy the Blu-ray because of the remastered episodes they went to the original 35 millimeter interpositive sources and gave a lot of attention to the color correction and dirt and

scratch cleanup so you want to buy it for that if you are a collector or fan but then you have this this really really fun and unique and i think think very informative extra on top of that. So it's going to be a great release. I hope that the fans embrace it. I want to say one more quick thing too, because in this will bookend it for us, because you had asked me the top of the conversation about how we, when we had pitched the, the, the, the project and everything. And initially the, the title of the piece was going to be heart of Superman. There was a moment when I had shared that with my colleague on the studio side, and this is where I really love this part about working with their collaboration as well. And my colleague on the studio side on this project was Michael Stradford. Michael Stradford

is a true, brilliant mind, passionate about comic books to the same level, if not more. I learned from him. He is awesome and what he's able to provide to us in terms of that capacity. He looked at our story. He looked at the way that we had designed just even our title itself. And he said, you know what? I feel like you should change this title up. And we had pitched a number of titles and we settled upon Superman, timeless icon. And I'm so glad we did. And I'm so thankful for the fact that Michael Stratford did mention that to us, because ultimately that's when, again, you're putting your best foot forward. So when we went out on stage for the world to see, we are putting that opportunity for them to understand that, hey, we as filmmakers do have to work through things.

But ultimately, it turns out even better because of that collaboration. So thank you, Michael. I appreciate it. Well, that's a terrific way to kind of end our conversation today. So it's been great having you come back on the podcast, Alex, and taking us through Superman, the animated series and the special feature Superman Timeless Icon. Thank you, Tim, for having me here. It's always a pleasure. I love chatting about this stuff and I'm looking forward to the next one. Absolutely. Well, I know one of them has to be that Batman, the animated series piece.

We've been talking about that for a while. So hopefully we'll be able to get to that before too long. I agree. Let's do it. Thanks again to Alex Gray for joining the podcast to talk Superman, the complete animated series, Blu-ray box set, and the impressive special feature Superman Timeless Icon. The box set is currently available for purchase and is a must-have for all Superman fans. For those of you interested in learning more about what was discussed in the show today,

there will be detailed information on the website at www.theextras.tv, including links to purchase the Blu-ray box set to add to your collection. Also, follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at TheExtrasTV or Instagram at TheExtras.TV to stay up to date on the latest episodes and for exclusive images and behind-the-scenes information about the episodes and upcoming guests. And if you're enjoying the guests we have in the show,

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